


Insurgence

by sivis



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Dwarves, Elves, Erebor, F/M, Mirkwood, The Avari, The Sindar
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2020-01-14 13:53:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18477568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sivis/pseuds/sivis
Summary: Tauriel has been serving in the kitchen of Erebor, as an act of goodwill from the King of the Woodland Realm. She's seen nary another elf since she was sent there, but when she stumbles upon a pair in the market of Dale, it's not the joyful reunion with her clansmen she'd imagined it would be.After thwarting an unanticipated assassination attempt on the King of Erebor, Tauriel and Erebor are suddenly entangled in an age old dispute between the Royal Sindar elves of the Woodland Realm, and the outlaw Silvan elves of Mirkwood.





	Insurgence

Tauriel awoke to the sounds of clanging pans and sizzling food. She was disoriented for awhile, sleep still claiming her mind, before she remembered where she was.

 

The servant quarters of Erebor.

 

She groaned inwardly. She’d been here for almost a year now but she never seemed to remember where she was upon waking up. She wondered why no one ever thought to wake her up before they got the kitchen started for breakfast. When she first arrived, she wasn’t even sure what her duties were. They had seemed to assign her different things every day. She’d tried to ask, but her Khuzdûl and Dalian had been inexistent and their Westron was even worse than hers. She hadn’t dared try Sindarin lest she end up in trouble for it, but she highly doubted they would speak Sindarin if they hardly spoke Westron.

 

Swinging her legs over the edge of her small bed, she rose gracefully and plucked her simple servant’s dress off the hook on the wall. Once dressed, and her hair braided, she entered the kitchen. A plump lady glanced up from behind a mound of raw meat, gesturing toward a tub of soup and a pile of bowls. Tauriel nodded in gratitude and eagerly served herself. The food had been one of many differences that Tauriel had had difficulties with since coming here. Her own people didn’t enjoy killing unless necessary, and as such ate very little meat. Meat seemed to be in every meal in Erebor, however. Her stomach and her sensibilities weren’t quite used to it yet, but she supposed she’d _have_ to get used to it eventually.

 

After downing her soup, the kindly and plump lady approached Tauriel with a slip of paper. The lady’s name was Gytha, Tauriel knew, but no one had had time to teach Tauriel proper Khuzdûl so she was never sure of the pronunciation. Sometimes Gytha gave her a shopping list and sent her with a few other servant girls to the morning market in Dale. Sure enough, the slip of paper was a list written in Khuzdûl runes.

 

“Go market,” Gytha said in broken Westron. “ _Fish_.” she explained further in Khuzdûl, pointing to the list. Tauriel nodded her understanding. Over the past year she’d picked up some words in Khuzdûl and so she and the other servants tended to communicate in a mangled mess of Westron and Khuzdûl. It worked just fine. Gytha guided her to a group of three other girls and made sure all four of them were equipped with huge baskets. Tauriel recognised a couple of them since before. The new girl looked at Tauriel curiously. She put a hand over her heart and inclined her head in a typical Sindar greeting.

 

“Áslaug,” she said. Tauriel assumed it was her name. Copying Áslaug’s greeting - which was strange, for the greeting was usually reserved for the High Lords - Tauriel responded with her own name. Áslaug grinned.

 

“I see Sindar visitors do so,” she smiled mischievously. Tauriel responded with her own smile. She presumed most of the Sindar visitors were delegates from the Woodland Realm and therefore nobility, it wouldn’t have been easy for Áslaug to know that simple folk like Tauriel didn’t use that greeting. Still, Tauriel didn’t say anything, appreciating Áslaug’s friendly gesture all the same.

 

The four girls trekked down the underground tunnel leading from Erebor to Dale. They’d had an early start because the tunnel was quite long, even though it was shorter than the Old Road. Ásalug and the two other girls chatted mostly in Khuzdûl, and Tauriel added a comment or two when she was able to. Tauriel didn’t much like living underground, much preferring the woods of her people, but the company was not bad, at least.

 

Once they exited the tunnel at the edges of Dale, the girls could see that the streets were already bustling, and most seemed to be heading for the main square. Tauriel loved Dale, while she didn’t have anything against Erebor’s architecture despite it being quite different from what she was used to, she didn’t think it was made justice all cooped up underground. Dale’s architecture was similar to Erebor’s. Tauriel had heard Dale often commissioned architects from Erebor since they were famous for their impressive and durable creations. She did think the architecture was made more justice out in the sun and nature.

 

Once they entered the market at the town square, Tauriel tapped Áslaug’s shoulder and stuck out her shopping list.

 

“ _Fish, yes? Where?_ ” She asked in Khuzdûl, drawing a smile from the girl. She led Tauriel down an aisle and pointed toward the end of the new aisle, answering something Tauriel didn’t understand.

 

“Last,” The girl clarified when she saw Tauriel’s confusion.

 

“ _Nututannar,_ ” Tauriel repeated the girl’s previous word, making her grin and nod. With her very sporadic grasp of the grammar of the language, Tauriel hazarded a guess. “ _Nutu -_ Last,” she pointed towards the end of aisle, “ _Tannar,_ ” she then pointed to the sales stall next to them. The girl nodded encouragingly but still corrected Tauriel gently.

 

“ _Nutut,_ she emphasised the last T. “ _Tannar_.”

 

“ _Khamnûna,_ ” Tauriel thanked the girl gratefully as they split up, Tauriel heading toward the fish stall, and the girl heading off to wherever she was supposed to make her purchases. The last few times Tauriel had gone to the morning market, the girls had met up at the tunnel entrance after they’d finished their shopping, so she wasn’t worried about losing them. Tauriel made her way toward the end of the aisle at her own leisure, curiously peeking over the shoulders of shoppers at whatever the stalls were selling. When she was almost at the fish stall, a conversation at the stall behind her caught her keen ears. They were speaking her mother tongue, of all things. She hadn’t heard it in years!

 

“He’s standing at the jewel stand,” she heard a low, gruff, voice saying in the woodland tongue. Tauriel was sure no one around her heard his murmur, but she had better hearing than anyone in Erebor or Dale. She pretended to look at the little trinkets in front of her as she surreptitiously glanced left and right, trying to spy the jewel stall. She found it right next to the fish stall. An Ereborian was standing there, examining a particularly large rock, accompanied by what looked like a heavily armed host of guards. The Ereborian was decked in fine clothing, his hair and beard intricately braided, and a large sword was strapped to his belt.

 

“I have almost clear sight, that one guard just needs to shift slightly,” another voice responded. Tauriel’s blood ran cold. The only ones she’d ever heard using that expression were the archers of the Woodland Guard. A woodland archer going for a seemingly High Lord Ereborian did _not_ bode well _._ Quickly she took a quick step to her left, ending up in front of a large Ereborian. She turned around facing him - quite intimately, too, if his shocked look was anything to go by. When he went to move out of her personal space, she grabbed his arm, widened her eyes urgently, and whispered “ _still,_ ” before standing on her tiptoes to peek over his shoulder.

 

She spied two hooded figures at the opposite stall, who could’ve been Dalian if it weren’t for the particular shade of green of their cloaks.

 

“Now,” one of them hissed, the other quickly reaching for the bow strapped to his back. Fortunately, Tauriel was quicker.

 

“GUARDS!” She hollered in Westron - a bit too preoccupied at that moment to remember the Khuzdûl word - and leapt at the archer. The archer swivelled around at her yell, arrow still notched and pointing at Tauriel. In a split second, the arrow had been let loose and buried itself in Tauriel’s shoulder. She let out a yell of pain at the same time as her body impacted with the archer. He flung her off of him, fortunately not in the direction of his companion, and was already notching another arrow. The crowd was yelling in fright and running away from them. The companion had overcome his surprise and was closing in on Tauriel with a drawn sword. In a flash, Tauriel had grabbed the arrow straight from the archer’s bow, spun around, and stabbed it into the neck of the swordsman.

 

That’s when the Ereborian guards reached them, roaring with axes and swords raised above their heads. The swordsman sank to the ground, eyes all too glassy and blood gurgling from his neck. The guards incapacitated the archer before he notched another arrow or pulled out another weapon. Tauriel’s legs were shaking and she sat down on the ground, a gasp of surprise belatedly leaving her lips. She looked at her shoulder from which the arrow protruded. By Eru Ilúvatar, that hurt. Her whole body was trembling. Two of the guards were wrestling the archer on the ground, the third keeping an eye on them just in case, but he cast a glance at her as well. She ripped the hem of her dress, fashioning a make-shift bandage, and reached to pull the arrow out.

 

“Stop!” The third guard called in alarm, taking a step toward her. Tauriel looked up. The guard was large, probably a head taller than herself and three times as wide. He had a magnificent beard and a terrifying scowl. His head was bare and covered in tattoos. “We’ll get ye a healer, lass. Nah need ta do tha’ ‘ere.” Tauriel raised her eyes in surprise, not really astounded at his kindness, more surprised that she hadn’t thought of that. Healers were expensive, and she’d never been able to afford one.

 

“Thanks,” she responded. “I can do this… first.” She said, not wanting to turn down his offer, but not really fancying having an arrow protruding from her shoulder longer than necessary. With a pained grunt she then tugged the arrow out of her shoulder and threw it carelessly on the ground. The guard dropped his jaw in surprise and knelt down in front of her as she started wrapping her shoulder with the cloth. He grabbed her hands, unexpectedly gently, to still them.

 

“Let me do tha’, lass.” He murmured. He tied the cloth with expertise - it hurt, of course, but not more than it had to, and quickly her wound was bandaged just tight enough. She was about to thank him when he turned around, startled by a loud smack, and saw his two fellows hauling the (now, decidedly unconscious) archer up from the ground. Tauriel picked up the discarded arrow instead and examined the arrowhead. She gasped silently in her mother tongue when she recognised the type.

 

“Wha’s tha’, lass?” The crouching guard asked, turning his head back toward her.

 

“Um,” Tauriel stuttered. She hadn’t realised she spoke out loud. “Don’t know… Westron or _Khuzdûl_ …” She muttered, struggling to string a sentence together. “In Sindarin, this _bedak—“_ she pointed to the arrowhead “—often _saew_.” Hadn’t she felt so lightheaded, she would’ve recognised that the guard’s Westron was much better than hers and there was no need to mix with Khuzdûl, but she’d become so used to it over the last years that the garbled mess now came easier to her than pure Westron. The guard did raise an eyebrow at her funny language, but took it in stride.

 

“This type of arrowhead is often… saah-ehw?” He tried to clarify but mispronounced the Sindarin. Tauriel nodded.

 

“ _Saew._ ” she repeated as her upper body started swaying. He steadied her shoulder and looked over at the other two guards.

 

“Dunno what tha’ means but ah can guess.” the guard grumbled. “Ah’ll take ‘er to Óin.” With that, he scooped Tauriel into his arms

 

“Need… _Athelas…_ ” she murmured as she felt the black creeping at the edges of her vision. In a split moment, her world went dark.

**Author's Note:**

> Sindar (pl.) / Sinda (s.) are the elves that speak Sindarin
> 
> Khuzdûl:
> 
> [nututannar] - “nutut” seems to mean “last” and “tannar” means “stalls”, as in booths, and I’m not sure if that would be different in singular. “Stand” (noun) is “tanr” but I couldn’t find if it means specifically stand as in “take a stand” or as in “a sales stand” or both.
> 
> [khamnûna] - thanks (for women)
> 
> [bedak] - arrow (I imagine she wouldn’t know the actual word for “arrowhead” with her limited knowledge of the language
> 
> Sindarin:
> 
> [saew] - poison
> 
> [Athelas] - Kingsfoil


End file.
